10 things which have changed since the last Cricket World Cup

Virat Kohli has become the captain of the Indian team in all 3 formats

The ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 is exactly 6 months away and all the teams have started preparing for the mega event which will be hosted by England. 10 teams namely Afghanistan. Australia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, South Africa, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, West Indies and England have made it to the tournament. The World Cup will be played in a new format as we will see all the teams play against one another at least once in the entire course of the competition.

The last World Cup was played in 2015 which saw Australia becoming only the second team in the history to win the World Cup on their own soil. Michael Clarke's men defeated New Zealand to win their 5th World Cup. However, a lot of things have changed since the last World Cup. Here are the 10 changes in the cricket world ever since the 2015 World Cup:

#1 Number of Test Teams

Ireland and Afghanistan joined the elite group of test playing nations

The number of test playing nations was 10 in the year 2015. But, the International Cricket Council (ICC) granted test status to more teams namely Afghanistan and Ireland to increase the number of test playing teams to 12. Both the teams have already made their test debuts albeit in losing causes.

Ireland came close to defeating Pakistan in their maiden test while Afghanistan were squashed by the Indian team on their test debut. Nevertheless, both the teams are expected to do well in the future as they are bound to receive more opportunities. This was a great step by the ICC to introduce more teams to the test format since the evolution of T20 cricket has led to the burial of test format in the upcoming cricket nations.